A notebook or a loaf of bread? Difficult choices that poor families face every day
Poor communities across the Arab and Islamic world face confusing and painful choices every day. A heartbreaking dilemma sits on the tables of these families daily:
If the money isn’t enough for both, which is more important — a notebook or a loaf of bread?
A simple question in form, yet it carries the depth of the tragedy lived by millions, and the difficulty of choices that shape the future of their children and society as a whole.
What does the phrase “A notebook or a loaf of bread” mean?
It reflects a harsh struggle faced by poor families when they are forced to choose between two fundamental rights of the child: education and food.
In communities suffering from chronic and inherited poverty, buying a school notebook becomes a challenge, and bread becomes a priority that pushes education aside.
Food vs. Education: A Daily Struggle
When income isn’t enough to secure food, education shifts from a right to a luxury. Many parents are forced into heartbreaking decisions, such as removing their children from school and sending them to work or beg — simply to survive.
Thus, the loaf of bread becomes a temporary victory… feeding them today, while threatening them with hunger tomorrow.
What is the impact of these choices on children and society?
Deprivation of education does not only mean lack of knowledge — it means the loss of dreams, the breaking of ambition, and the extension of poverty from one generation to the next, until poverty becomes an inheritance passed from parents to children.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim, and indeed all things seek forgiveness for the seeker of knowledge, even the fish in the sea.” So when a child is deprived of education, the entire society loses opportunities for progress, prosperity, and a life of dignity.